Prophetic Dream Leads to Discovery of Old Icon in Bulgaria

The church of Lopushna monastery in Bulgaria in northwestern Bulgaria, photo BGNES

A walled-up ancient icon has been found in the church of Bulgarian Lopushna Monastery "St John the Baptist."

This was announced Friday by Archimandrite Sioniy - abbot of the monastery. The discovered icon, depicting the Virgin Mary and the baby, has a silver lining, and is more than 320 years old.

An unknown at first woman has phoned to tell the abbot of a dream she had that pointed to her where the icon of the Virgin Mary and little Jesus Christ was hidden. Sioniy, cited by Bulgarian news agency BTA, says that he and priests from the monastery went to this exact same place several days ago and found in a secret compartment in the wall a well preserved icon that was probably hidden there in 1688 to keep it safe from invasions.

"The woman with the propheticdream is an elderly lady and a deeply believing and devoted Christian. She lives in Sofia and her name is Maria," says the Archimandrite.

The back of the sacred find reveals that it was placed in a temple where there was a fire because its one side is burnt. Two evergreen cypresses are depicted as well as they are symbol of eternity in Orthodoxy.

Sioniy believes that this icon was painted in the years when the place was an old monastery, which was destroyed in 1688b by Ottoman Turks after a local uprising against the Ottoman Empire was suppressed.